John Dudley: Tudor England's Wicked Duke

Henry VIII is dead and England has replaced him with a boy king. But the one really pulling the strings of power behind the young and inexperienced Edward VI is one of Tudor England’s most formidable power players: John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Remembered by his enemies as the ‘Wicked Duke’, Dudley was ruthless and ambitious - but also a skilled statesman who helped rescue England from war, financial crisis and political instability. Then, in 1553, he risked everything by attempting to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne. In this episode Dan is joined by Professor Suzannah Lipscomb to explore Dudley’s extraordinary rise and bloody fall - and ask: was he a villain, an opportunist, or Tudor England’s unlikely saviour? You can check out Dan and Suzannah's latest documentary series How the Tudors Lost Their Heads on National Geographic. Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Hannah Feodorov We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6 Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can also email the podcast directly at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Dan Snow's History Hit is a History Hit podcast. History Hit is part of Little Dot Studios, a Certified B Corp™. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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  Henry VIII is dead. Who now will rule England? His son, his heir, the boy King Edward VI, sits on the throne, technically. But like all child monarchs, there are going to be shadowy figures whispering into their ears, pulling the strings behind the scenes, the true power players. And in this iteration of the Tudor court, it was John Dudley. In some ways, he's the archetypal Tudor villain, the kind that you imagine lurking in the shadows in a dark velvet cloak. His moniker in history is the wicked duke. He dominated politics during the reign of the boy King Edward VI between 1549 and 1553.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  Dudley was cunning, calculated, ruthless, a brilliant political operator with a Protestant fervour. He would risk all to get what he wanted. He was a dangerous man, but that isn't to say he wasn't exactly what Tudor England needed at that time. He took the reins in a period of serious crisis. England was unstable, religiously divided, financially strained. He did put an end to expensive wars. He pulled England back from the brink of total economic collapse. He improved administration. He reorganized the navy. He stabilized the country. To his supporters, he was decisive and practical, driven by survival. But he went too far, they always do.

• 3:22Speaker 00

  He led a coup attempt, effectively, to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne of England, and that led him eventually to the executioner's block. To chart the meteoric rise and disastrous fall of one of Tudor England's most influential figures, I'm joined by the brilliant Professor Suzannah Lipscomb, expert in all things Tudors. She and I recently made a documentary series called How the Tudors Lost Their Heads, which is out now on National Geographic. In it, we reveal some of the era's most famous figures in a new light by investigating the real reasons their lives ended by execution.

• 4:02Speaker 00

  So was John Dudley Tudor England's savior or greatest villain? This is Dan Snow's History Hit.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Susanna, thanks for coming on.

• 4:17Speaker 04

  It's good to see you, Dan.

• 4:18Speaker 00

  It's very good to see you too. And what a dramatic place to start, the death of old King Henry. He's ruled for as long as anyone can remember. That must have been an extraordinary moment.

• 4:27Speaker 04

  It certainly was. I mean, actually, what's so strange about it is that Henry VIII has become such a dominant presence. Everything has been dictated by his whims for decades. And yet, at the moment of his death, the thing I find extraordinary is that very quickly everyone's scrambling to work out what's going to happen next and what position they're going to have. And the fear of this great tyrant is almost immediately forgotten, like his wishes are almost immediately put aside.

• 4:58Speaker 00

  Really? And they find some backbone, or they start looking after their own interests once the great man is breathing his last. When there's a transition in this period from one monarch to another, is that a time of opportunity for the men around the king? Do they seek to maintain what they've got, advance? What goes on then?

• 5:14Speaker 04

  Yes, it's absolutely a time of opportunity. And the death of Henry VIII is perhaps particularly the case because in his last will and testament, he says that any grants or gifts which have been unfulfilled should be granted. And one of John Dudley's friends, William Paget, happily has a document. This document from Dudley's friend, William Paget, which is endorsed by Henry VIII, says things like their friend Edward Seymour should become the Duke of Somerset, and that various other people should be ennobled or, you know, reached up in terms of the peerage. And so there's this sense that this is a moment to capitalize on that kind of fudging

• 5:58Speaker 04

  of what Henry actually meant when he said that these things should be, that are unfulfilled should be paid out.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  It's like when one of our relatives dies, your mum always wanted me to have that teapot. She just specifically said that. That's so interesting. So there's oldums and dukedums kind of flying around.

• 6:10Speaker 04

  Exactly. If you just substitute teapot for like a peerage, yes.

• 6:13Speaker 00

  But is it also a time of danger? Because you've got these big egos, these powerful magnates, and you've got now a child on the throne. And we have not had great examples in the last 150 years of English history of what happens when a child gets on the throne.

• 6:25Speaker 04

  Exactly. Every time, there's been something that went wrong, pretty much whether you've got a regent or protector or a council. And there's a few days where there's everything to play for because generally speaking, they don't announce the death of the monarch until they've got their plan in place. So after Henry VIII dies, they keep taking food to his rooms, they keep, you know, the trumpeters keep trumpeting outside at the certain hours, and it's all to cover over the fact that he's dead. And the same thing happens when Edward dies because they're trying to make sure that Mary doesn't find out.

• 6:59Speaker 00

  I mean, they're all jockeying for position behind these closed doors. I mean, that's, there's no, no one's in charge.

• 7:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, and there's no honour of, you know, they're just all just absolutely scrambling.

• 7:10Speaker 00

  That's crazy. And his son is nine. They're happy that his son will sit on the throne, but of course, the key thing is who will sort of rule in his place?

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Yes. So Henry VIII has planned that there will be a council because he has looked back, as you say at the previous examples, he's looked back at Richard III and the princes in the tower. He's looked back at the sort of disastrous French campaigns, you know, from the early 15th century. And so he's thought, okay, well, what we need is 16 men who will rule in concert. And he has made sure that certain big personalities are not on that council, like Stephen Gardner, who's the bishop of Winchester, or Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk.

• 7:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm not surprised. Get him well away from it.

• 7:52Speaker 04

  In the tower at the time, accused of treason. And so these people are supposed to rule in concert, and that is not what happens because they meet within days of Henry's death. So he dies on the 28th January, 1547, and within days, they have decided that Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, newly appointed, will be the first among equals. He will be the Lord Protector. So they won't really be ruling by the council. And they say they're doing all this because of Henry VIII's will, which is sort of like lip service to the world doing exactly the opposite of what it says.

• 8:29Speaker 00

  And just let, so zooming out, England at the time, Henry has, Henry has spent a lot of money, so indebted, has stirred up all sorts of religious problems that Protestants, the reforming Christians Protestants, think that the future kind of belongs to them. Catholics think presumably there might be a chance now to heal this rift with Rome. So everyone's, there's going to be excitement and opportunity for everyone out there at the passing of King Henry.

• 8:59Speaker 04

  Yes. Everybody thinks that there's, that there's something to be corrected in terms of religion. So Catholics think they need to go back to Rome, and those who can now declare themselves Protestant, because basically to be a Protestant under Henry was heresy, are able to push forward. And among them is John Dudley. I mean, I think, I mean, what his position on faith is, is hard to determine, but he's certainly in with a group of Protestants who then push forward with basically iconoclastic change, you know, I mean, really smashing church stained glass windows.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  They would have seen themselves completing what Henry started, so break with Rome and now wipe out every vestige of Roman Catholicism.

• 9:37Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 9:38Speaker 00

  Okay. And that, what's that mean, smashing up churches?

• 9:40Speaker 04

  It means smashing up rude screens, which are sort of beautiful wooden carved screens with the statues of the saints in them in churches. It means smashing up windows that are stained glass on them, statues of saints. All of this, they think, is idolatrous. It means removing any idea of the mass being a sacrifice, getting rid of the liturgy in Latin, which also makes redundant almost all church music overnight. It means completely changing the experience of church. There aren't altars anymore, there are tables. I mean, it's stripped down, stripped down. And this must have been absolutely extraordinary for people who lived through it because it was so alienating and changed their experience of church.

• 10:25Speaker 04

  And everyone went to church every Sunday, pretty much. And so this is their major community place, and suddenly it's all different. So it has a massive impact and it produces rebellions in the country when these things are introduced.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  So turmoil, you've mentioned John Dudley a few times. Let's get on, let's get into it with him. Where does this, where does this man emerge from? We hear a lot in the Tudors, don't we, about these sort of... Many weren't great aristocrats, but are sort of raised up through their own merit, perhaps through the laziness of Henry VIII, and these people do all the jobs for him. Is he coming from that kind of managerial class?

• 10:59Speaker 04

  I mean, more or less, yes. His father had been essentially an administrator for Henry VII and had done his dirty work. And that included extracting money from nobility and from people of status. And that is what he is punished for when Henry VIII comes to the throne, because Henry VII had become avaricious, quite miserly, in the last years of his life. And Edmund Dudley, John's father, is one of those who's held up as having driven this policy. He sort of has to pay for Henry VII's sins, and Henry VIII demonstrates his own generosity by having Dudley killed, by saying, we're not going to be like that, let's get rid of him.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  Even though Dudley was doing his dad's bidding?

• 11:45Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 11:46Speaker 00

  So it's like a reshuffle, one of those ridiculous reshuffles in modern politics, when a new person comes in and goes, we're going to get rid of the Transport Secretary because I'm going to, it's going to be super fresh around here. It's like, come on, man.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  Yes, yes. The only chew to spit on it is when you get rid of the secretary, you cut off their head.

• 12:01Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah.

• 12:02Speaker 04

  So...

• 12:02Speaker 00

  So John Dudley knows what's at stake here.

• 12:04Speaker 04

  He does. And so he grows up, I think he's eight at the time his father dies, he grows up knowing that his family had been tainted for treason. And that's reversed. I mean, they get back their position to an extent. But he grows up without a father because of that. And he has to work for his status. And so we see him in Woolsey for a new in the 1520s, for example.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  Yeah, how do you get on? So you're a smart young guy, you've been educated, your dad, your family's seen to that. Do you, is it your sword arm, or is it your language skills, your writing? What's going to get you ahead? What's going to get you advanced at the Tudor Court?

• 12:41Speaker 04

  For John Dudley, it's definitely his sword arm because his writing is atrocious. But he's a great man when it comes to battles. So he's quite dependable, and he becomes increasingly important as a military commander over Henry VIII's reign. So he's good when it goes, when it comes to going to war. And also, the other thing about him that becomes evident over time, and this takes the next 20 years or so to demonstrate this, but he's a good man when you want someone to do a dirty job. So he's the person you turn to when there's something difficult, because he's a bit opportunistic.

• 13:18Speaker 00

  Well, he's got no, sort of, he's got no family to fall back on, no great name. So I suppose he's, he's willing to do the work.

• 13:25Speaker 04

  He has the support of one of the great families at the Tudor Court, the Guildfords, and sort of is taken under their wing. But, I mean, you went to Dudley Castle for this series, didn't you? And so there's this, the kind of insight there about how he's operating from an early stage.

• 13:40Speaker 00

  Dudley Castle is, is an interesting place because it actually belonged to a distant cousin of his, had gone down a different line. And then the cousin was running short of money, and Dudley lent him money in, on no doubt, terms that are very favorable to himself. And then foreclosed on the mortgage, basically, just ejected his cousin from the castle. So there's a Dudley in Dudley Castle now. And I guess that's, so he's ruthless and quite effective. And I guess if you're a king, you want people, you've got a reasonably small pool of people that you can select from to do things for you. And you want people that are going to get the job done.

• 14:17Speaker 04

  Yeah. And there's an example of him doing the same sort of thing a few years later. So in 1540, I mean, Cromwell has major concerns that are different to this, but he writes to Cromwell because a man called Sir Andrew Flummock, who is the keeper of Kenilworth Castle, has got the plague. And whilst the poor man is still apparently dying, Dudley writes to Cromwell and says, could I have that job? Embarrassing because Flummock doesn't die. He survives. But there's this sense that he's always going to be the person who's going to just grasp a little bit and reach a bit. But those are the sort of people that you need.

• 14:58Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Ambitious. And he's presumably quite clever as well, because he allies himself with the person you've already mentioned, Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who is King Edward VI's uncle. So he's a good guy at the start of this reign, Edward VI. Somerset's in a powerful position, and Dudley's trying to get close to him.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  Yes. And that has sort of built up over the 1540s. They're friends, and they're aligned. And it's clear that their position on faith might be similar, but that they get along and they can work together. And William Paget is perhaps the third of their number, this little trio who essentially take power. But though they're great friends, Edward Seymour and John Dudley, Dudley in the end does for Seymour. So a couple of years into Edward's reign, Seymour has proved unpopular because he has pushed forward with

• 15:59Speaker 04

  these religious ideas, of course, but also there's been things to do with enclosure and agriculture that are deeply unpopular. And the upshot of this is that he sends Dudley to deal with some rebels in Norfolk, in Norwich, and Dudley presides over the massacre of about 300 of them within two weeks. So I always want people to remember that when they talk about Bloody Mary, like, under Edward, within two weeks, as many people died as Protestants were killed during Mary's reign. So Dudley's doing this. But meanwhile, Seymour is becoming so unpopular that actually, in the end, Dudley realizes it's, if he's

• 16:41Speaker 04

  going, if he doesn't deal with Seymour, he himself is going to go down. And so he turns against his old friend.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  Wow. It's like Soviet Politburo. And how, so how does that, so he basically does a sort of coup against his old friend and the king's uncle?

• 16:55Speaker 04

  Yes. I mean, it looks likely that Seymour might have done the same to him.

• 17:00Speaker 04

  I mean, you can't trust your friends at the Tudor Court. One of them is going to die. But yes, he says that, you know, Seymour has plotted to murder him. And the problem with this is, I mean, in the end, Seymour does die. But the problem with this is that along the way, Dudley's making lots of enemies. So just before Henry VIII died, he'd really made an enemy of Thomas Howard, who's the Duke of Norfolk. And, you know, we can actually hark back to a few years earlier, when Catherine Howard, the Duke of Norfolk's niece, had been Henry VIII's queen. And Dudley is the person who takes the news to Henry that she's committed

• 17:42Speaker 04

  adultery. And he takes a letter from Crammer, he also takes explicit details about what she's done that he conveys by mouth to Henry VIII. Again, opportunistic, really dangerous thing to do, because he might well have

• 17:54Speaker 00

  The king might be sure.

• 17:55Speaker 04

  shot the messenger. But it's on the, off the back of that that he becomes Viscount Lyle. And so he's upset the Howards. At the time of Seymour's downfall, he upsets the Earl of Arundel. So as he rises, he's stepping on other people, and that will come back to bite him.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  And is that, is that normal? You've studied the Tudor periods so, so closely. Is that, is that a, is that a normal way of getting ahead? Do you have to sort of trample the weak and hurdle the dead? Or is there a smarter way of operating where you can kind of build alliances and work your way up that way?

• 18:28Speaker 04

  I think he's unusually bad at keeping allies. I think, I mean, I think it is relatively normal that you, that you can make enemies along the way. But he, he just doesn't seem to care enough about maintaining friends or maintaining popularity. And I think if you look at some other examples, like Crammer, for example, is very good at bending like a reed in the wind, you know, he'll, he'll, he'll go whatever direction in terms of, I mean, he's a great man, I feel bad saying this, but he, but he certainly does sort of allow himself to be swayed from side to side. Dudley is a bit more stubborn,

• 19:12Speaker 04

  he holds to different positions, he puts himself out there, he puts himself on the line a bit more, he makes enemies more.

• 19:18Speaker 00

  The thing I find, Susanna, when we talk about this, I sometimes wonder what is in it for people in the Tudor? Why is he so driven? Why not take your winnings and have a nice life? I mean, is it just, is it just, that's what people do? We're ambitious, we're always trying for the next thing? Or is there a sense in which if you don't seek power, other people will get that power, and then you're likely to be in trouble?

• 19:40Speaker 04

  I think it's probably the former. I mean, why do you not sit at home?

• 19:44Speaker 00

  Well, I ask myself that all the time. Today, because I get to spend time with you, that's why.

• 19:50Speaker 04

  I think it's just because it's exciting, right? The Tudor Court is where everything's happening. If you want to do anything in the 16th century, you've got to go to court. And that's where there's opportunity and excitement, and you can make a mark, and you can have a purpose, and you can be principled. But you can also just be, you know, outright ambitious. But hopefully, people think they're building something, they're doing something good, they've got all these narratives about what they're doing. But they can only do it there.

• 20:16Speaker 00

  All right. Well, we're going to have more on the Tudor Court and Dudley in it after this. Don't go. This episode is brought to you by TikTok. I never thought about the history of coffee. You make it, you drink it, nothing more to it. Then I've had a TikTok video about how people in the 1700s would pour their coffee into saucers to let it cool before drinking it. I love that sort of discovery, a detail. But suddenly, you're imagining how people lived and drank and socialized. Now I wonder what will baffle historians about us: mugs. It's a ceramic vessel, but crucially, it has a handle. Well, that's the joy of TikTok, folks. You look for one thing and find yourself somewhere completely different. Your next discovery is waiting on TikTok. Learn more at tiktok.com/discovermore.

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• 22:16Speaker 00

  Go away. So Susanna, Dudley is about to launch his coup. Presumably he has to have some allies. You can't just go toe to toe with Seymour. He's convinced enough people on this council to oust the boss, has he?

• 22:28Speaker 04

  Absolutely has. So he's allied himself with people who are Catholic or a conservative religion. I think they're pretty much Catholic by this point. And he's persuaded them that he will work with them and they can get rid of Seymour.

• 22:43Speaker 00

  So he sort of tracks back slightly, having given out slight Protestant vibes with Seymour initially, he's now tracking back to the...

• 22:51Speaker 04

  But then, very soon afterwards, he then, in the process of it, he then says, "Oh no, actually, the Earl of Arundel was involved in the plot as well." So what he manages to do is he's managed to upset both sides. Like, this is what I mean, he's not very good at keeping friends. He tacks.

• 23:08Speaker 00

  But he is successful initially. He does get rid of the Lord Protector Somerset.

• 23:13Speaker 04

  He does get rid of Lord Protector Somerset and essentially becomes the primary man in Edward VI England. So he doesn't become Lord Protector himself, but he becomes sort of the head of the council, the first of the council.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  And does it, the king's a little bit older now. Does the king like him? Does it even matter? Is the king just getting trampled all over? Or do you think, does he spend time with the king doing crosswords and be like, "I'm a nice guy"? I mean, is that important?

• 23:37Speaker 04

  I think it is important that the king likes him, because as the king is sort of entering his teenage years, he's getting opinions for himself. And so Dudley has to persuade Edward that he's worth having around.

• 23:52Speaker 00

  But crushing rebels in Norfolk is the kind of thing that a young king is going to love, isn't it? I mean, if he's quite dynamic in that respect, you can see him impressing the king.

• 24:00Speaker 04

  Yes. And we get the impression that Edward VI is quite interested in that sort of military side of things from his journals, and also quite interested in Protestantism. He's quite, I mean, he's a teenager. He sees things in black and white terms, right? So, so obviously, the Catholics are bad and the Protestants are good. And it's, you know, so I think John Dudley plays to that instinct in him in what he does.

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Okay. But and he outmaneuvers the king's uncle, which is no small thing. Seymour, does Seymour go to the old block?

• 24:36Speaker 04

  He does. Not immediately, but he does within a few years.

• 24:38Speaker 00

  So he's dead. Then Dudley changes tack and turns on some of the people that helped him.

• 24:44Speaker 04

  Well, he, yes, he makes sure that the Earl of Arundel is imprisoned, at the same time for saying that he also was involved in the plot to murder John Dudley. But Dudley holds his position through those years of Edward's reign and is doing fairly well. But then we get to Edward dying at the age of 15, and there is this question about how much John Dudley is involved in trying to determine what happens next.

• 25:15Speaker 00

  Because Edward, so we should say, so Dudley is very powerful. He's become the Duke of Northumberland, one of the great titles of England. Foreign ambassadors are saying he's effectively ruling England at this point. So he's, he's got extraordinary reach. Just quickly, in your experience, more than most non-royals in this period, are there any other figures equivalent to Dudley in the Tudor century? Has he really built up a huge amount of power?

• 25:38Speaker 04

  Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, was a parallel. Other than that, I suppose you have to look at people like Thomas Cromwell, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who are ministers to monarchs. But, no, I mean, absolutely, I think that he and Edward Seymour, the two dukes during Edward's reign, have access to power, you know, they're altar wrecks, they're another king, because they are governing for, for a young and teenage boy.

• 26:04Speaker 00

  Now, we should say that Dudley's fans believe that he was really very effective at this point. He does restore stability, some financial stability. I mean, what's your take on that? Fan of Dudley in this position?

• 26:15Speaker 04

  He is a very capable man, and he gets the job done. That is exactly the thing that you can say about him. He may not make friends, but he, he brings the war with France to an end. That's, you know, been a drain on resources. He's, he's very good at, you know, looking after affairs.

• 26:35Speaker 00

  And does he, in terms of the religious settlement that's always sort of shifting in this century, is he quite important? Does he put his hand on the scale one way or another? Is he up to give England that sort of Protestant identity that will go on to prove quite enduring?

• 26:48Speaker 04

  Yes. I mean, he actually takes it further than it had gone under Edward Seymour. There's a second Book of Common Prayer, produced by Thomas Cranmer in Edward's reign. And the second book, which is 1551, strips away any vestiges of Catholic practice. You know, really, very much narrows it down to a Protestant form of practice and belief. And this is the point at which, you know, church music disappears, for example. And so we see Dudley absolutely pushing through with that agenda. And it's an extreme, it's an extreme form of Protestantism. In fact, it's more extreme than we'll end up with Elizabeth, where she's reaching that sort of settlement, where things look a bit Catholic.

• 27:32Speaker 04

  You know, the priests are still wearing clerical robes, but, and they're still at an altar, but what they're saying can be interpreted by Protestants or Catholics to mean whatever they think happens during the Mass, et cetera. That's much more, that's more muted than what we get under Edward.

• 27:49Speaker 00

  So Dudley is really putting his stamp on things. He's getting the job done. Edward gets sick. This is the problem with monarchies, isn't it? When the, when the, when the principal starts to get ill, is it a drawn out illness? Does he die overnight? What happens?

• 28:02Speaker 04

  It's over a few months. It's not overnight. He's not always sickly, so sometimes it's said about him. He seems to have been in pretty robust health until the year 1553. I mean, that's not entirely true, sorry. There was something in 1552, but when it comes back in 1553, what it is, we're not quite sure. Maybe it's a form of tuberculosis. He certainly gets sick in that year. And, you know, over the months from February, he's not getting better. And probably by May or June, they can start to see that he's not going to live. Although, people saying so get punished. You know, there are examples

• 28:45Speaker 04

  of people being put on the pillory or their ears pinned up on Cheapside because they've said that the king is going to die. And you can't have that.

• 28:53Speaker 00

  No.

• 28:54Speaker 04

  So it's, it's being talked about, but people are not supposed to be talking about the fact that this young boy is going to die.

• 29:01Speaker 00

  And is Dudley hovering at the bedside table with lots of bits of paper to sign?

• 29:05Speaker 04

  Well, this is the question. So Edward famously draws up something called His Device for the Succession, which is at the inner temple. It's an amazing document. It's just two sides, and it's quite a childish hand. And he explains in it what he wants to happen when he dies.

• 29:22Speaker 00

  So you think he wrote it in his own hand?

• 29:24Speaker 04

  Oh, it's definitely in his own hand. And it's amazing to go and see it. And it's just sort of thrilling. Here, we've got this 15-year-old trying to plan out his future and trying to be like his daddy, who had said who should follow him onto the throne in his last will. And here, he's like, "Well, I'm going to determine it." And he rules out by admitting them, his half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, and rules in, in the end, Lady Jane Grey. But that's not what he says at first. At first, he says that his cousin, Lady Jane's heir's male should be the inheriting the throne. In fact, in the document, I think it says the words "heir's male" 12 times. He's completely convinced that the person

• 30:07Speaker 04

  to follow him onto the throne must be a boy, which, fair enough, there hasn't been a successful queen regnant by that point. And it's only when he is, I mean, this is an assumption. One assumes it's when he's at the point of death, and it's clear that Lady Jane, who's recently married, by the way, Guildford Dudley, John Dudley's son, is not pregnant or doesn't have an heir male, that he makes this change where he crosses out the S at the end of Lady Jane's, and he adds in "and her." So now Lady Jane Grey, Lady Jane Dudley, is nominated as queen by Edward. And so the question is, where's John Dudley in all this? Is he just over Edward's shoulder saying, "I mean, what we could do, while she

• 30:52Speaker 04

  doesn't have a son, is, I mean, we could just nominate her for now, and I'll look after it. And then, of course, once her son comes, he can be king. Who knows?"

• 31:01Speaker 00

  So let's find out what happens when Edward VI dies after this. Don't go away.

• 31:08Speaker 02

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• 31:10Speaker 01

  Ah, fall. That cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table's been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store reminding you that the year is coming to a close.

• 31:24Speaker 02

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• 31:47Speaker 04

  After civil war, regicide and Cromwell's Republic, the monarchy returned. But Britain would never be the same. I'm Professor Suzanne Lipscomb, and this month on Not Just the Tudors, we're transported back to the age of Restoration royalty, from Charles II to Queen Anne and the birth of the Empire. Join me on Not Just the Tudors from History Hit, wherever you get your podcasts.

• 32:18Speaker 00

  See, Edward VI is breathing his last, the teenage king. John Dudley, the Duke of Northumberland, is at his bedside. They, together, or Edward VI has nominated his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, who's Protestant, to be the next sovereign. He's overlooked his two half-sisters, Mary and Elizabeth. Why, who is Lady Jane Grey, and why does she get the nod?

• 32:44Speaker 04

  So, Lady Jane Grey is descended from Henry VIII's sister, Mary. So she had married Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk.

• 32:53Speaker 00

  A naughty relationship.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  Naughty relationship, because they marry sort of without permission, after she had had a vigorous relationship with the King of France, and he'd died as a result. And, and, uh, three months later. And they married very quickly, without Henry VIII's permission, Henry VIII's best friend, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Their daughter is Francis Brandon. She marries Henry Grey, who basically is an idiot. But they have three pretty brilliant daughters, Jane, Catherine and Mary. So Jane is the oldest of those daughters.

• 33:27Speaker 00

  So she's got good Tudor blood in her veins. She's a direct descendant of Henry VII. But she's, anyway, she's got less good claim than Edward VI's sisters, but never mind. Okay, so Lady Jane Grey, she's his cousin, she's a Protestant, great. Why did he prefer her, by the way, over his siblings?

• 33:43Speaker 04

  I think it's because Henry VIII made Mary and Elizabeth illegitimate. So in an Act of Succession, 1536, they're made illegitimate. There's another Act of Succession, 1544, that puts them back into the line of succession, but does not make them legitimate. And I imagine that from that teenage boy's viewpoint, that is out of bounds.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, and also, I guess, if you're gonna not give it to your sister Mary, because she's Catholic, it's a bit odd to skip a sister, so let's just give it to a cousin.

• 34:11Speaker 04

  You can't, you can't, because the argument is about the legitimacy.

• 34:14Speaker 00

  Okay, good point, yeah, okay, so that's neat, the cousin. Now Dudley, the most powerful man in the kingdom, has married his son, helpfully, to Lady Jane Grey.

• 34:23Speaker 04

  Yes, and he obviously hopes that Guildford will be king by proxy. So when there's a procession into the Tower with Jane, Guildford is there, walking in front of her. I mean, as if he is king.

• 34:37Speaker 00

  So King Edward VI dies. Very sad. What does Dudley do?

• 34:43Speaker 04

  So Dudley immediately moves to create Jane as queen. So in that period of time, before the news has got out, or so he thinks, he goes to see Jane with some others at St John's House, and tells her...

• 34:59Speaker 00

  It's you.

• 35:01Speaker 04

  It's you.

• 35:02Speaker 00

  I've been to that room in St John's House, extraordinary.

• 35:04Speaker 04

  So he's brought her there to say, you are queen.

• 35:06Speaker 00

  And they go, there's, there's a throne, sit on it, you're the queen. And Jane doesn't want it, does she?

• 35:11Speaker 04

  She doesn't really want it, I mean, she's a bit bewildered, she doesn't know if it's right, she's a very learned, serious, pious, I mean, quite extraordinarily brilliant young girl, but she doesn't, you know, doesn't think it is right. She is persuaded that it is right, by law, that maybe God has called her to this role. She accepts the crown.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  And it's the dying king's wishes.

• 35:36Speaker 04

  Exactly, and it's been passed by letters patent, which was one of the ways it becomes legal, that she's queen. And so she's taken to the Tower to await her coronation.

• 35:47Speaker 00

  So she goes to the Tower, is she accompanied by her husband, who just so happens to be the Duke of Northumberland's son?

• 35:51Speaker 04

  Yes, he's with her, in fact, as they process in, he's walking in front of her. So he is putting himself in the position of king. And there's, there's some muttering about her being queen in London, the great supporters of Mary.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  Because she would be the first queen in the history of England at this, the question, Queen Regna, Matilda never got, never got crowned. So it's from Alfred the Great to present, she's the first queen, so it's a big deal.

• 36:18Speaker 04

  It is a big deal, but actually, there's not much focus on her gender, because the two candidates for the throne are both women. So the, the question is about legitimacy, and in London, there's murmurings about Mary really being the queen. But then Guildford walks ahead of Jane, as if he is to become king. And Jane, you know, she's a smart cookie, and she quickly realises, that is not what she wants, because she realises that John Dudley can essentially rule through Guildford. So she doesn't name Guildford king.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  Oh, really, that's good. So John Dudley is pulling the strings at this point, his son is married to the new queen. When, when people say, oh, do you think John Dudley wanted to be king? Do you think he wanted his son to be king? Do you think that was true, or was he happy with just being sort of the power behind the throne for both him and his son? He was happy to wait for his grandchild to sit on the throne formally?

• 37:11Speaker 04

  I think he did want to exercise power through Guildford. I don't think he planned it, exactly. I don't, I think, even when Jane and Guildford were married, I don't know if he could necessarily see that far ahead on the chessboard, and see that Edward would nominate Jane and his son would become king. Perhaps he did. I do think it's very much Edward's wish to nominate Jane. But John Dudley, as we've seen, is a man who will make the most of every opportunity. And here's an opportunity, he wants to carry on exercising power, he's exercised it whilst Edward's king, why can he not exercise it whilst Jane's queen?

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, intoxicating, exciting, to think that your son or your grandson might actually become, might sit on the throne of the Plantagenas, and you've struggled in poverty growing up, I mean, that must be exciting.

• 37:58Speaker 04

  How exciting? I mean, Joanne Paul has written this book called The House of Dudley, and there's very much this hope that there's going to be the House of Dudley after that.

• 38:07Speaker 00

  Yes, of course, yeah, it would have been the House Dudley. Okay, so, they're in the Tower of London, what happens next?

• 38:13Speaker 04

  What happens next is that Mary has got a whiff of the news that her brother is dead. And rather than wait to be told officially, she flees to her lands in East Anglia, she goes to Kenningham, and from there to Framlingham. And she amasses troops who are going to defend her title as queen. And so she, she, you know, although Jane has been declared as queen on the 10th of July of 1553, within days, Mary's having herself declared as queen. So it's immediately, like, sort of a position of war.

• 38:55Speaker 04

  Now, it doesn't look like Mary can possibly win, because John Dudley, one of the things you can say about him is, he's a really good war leader. He's a great military commander, he amasses troops, he marches over to East Anglia, you think, well, it's going to come to battle, and obviously, John Dudley's going to win. I mean, it's interesting that he, he is sent, actually, I mean, it makes sense from a sort of military point of view, but it means he leaves the power base of London.

• 39:23Speaker 00

  Can't be in two places at once.

• 39:24Speaker 04

  Exactly, so that's, you know, always that, there's always that problem. And I don't think he realises how powerful Mary is, because he doesn't take the direct route to Framlingham, he marches up to Cambridge to declare that Jane's queen, or to gather more troops, or whatever, and then down to Framlingham. But he has made enemies in the area, because a few years earlier, he'd put down that rebellion.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  Oh, of course, in Norfolk, in East Anglia, he'd killed all those people.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  He'd killed all those people, and people can remember that, because it was only four years earlier. And so, they hate him, they hate him, and they love Mary, who has done the opposite, in that she has spent time cultivating relationships in East Anglia, developing a kind of what some historians are called household affinity. So she's got, she's built up the, the support network there, which he can activate at the moment when Jane is proclaimed queen, at the crucial time.

• 40:25Speaker 00

  So Dudley's army is approaching, and yet there isn't a great battle, so what happens?

• 40:31Speaker 04

  Because there are defections. So there are ships that are part of the navy who can help protect Mary escaping to the continent. They mutiny, they defect to Mary. Meanwhile, other troops are defecting to Mary, and the Privy Council sees the way that the wind is blowing, and suddenly change their minds and declare that Mary's queen.

• 40:56Speaker 00

  Wow, because, and John Dudley's marching about with a bunch of hungry soldiers in the East Midlands.

• 41:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, and he's on, he's on his own now. And he quickly tries to proclaim, to swap sides, and say, oh, no, no, I mean, I, I think Mary's queen too. But it's obvious that somebody has to be to blame. And so the really interesting thing is, although everyone on the council has backed Jane, Dudley's the one out there in the field, with the troops going to attack Mary, he's the fall guy.

• 41:24Speaker 00

  So he's getting updates from London, he's getting, he's hearing that Mary's strength is building, units are mutining, and he begins to feel like he is just totally isolated out there.

• 41:34Speaker 04

  Yes, and, and he absolutely is. And what's really interesting is that when it comes to his trial, he says that, he has, puts up a very good defence, he says, how can I have been committing treason, when what I was doing was at the council's behest, it was on their orders, and with the Great Seal of England, to do what they, opposite of what they had told me would have been treason? I can't have been committing treason by doing it. And it has a strange echo of what had happened with his father.

• 42:04Speaker 00

  I was shown a wonderful letter during when we made our TV show together, where he actually writes about that, he has a premonition, as I think anyone would in the Tudor court, but he had a premonition, he's like, I'm doing these things, whether it's putting down rebels in Norfolk, I'm doing things at the behest of the council, of the government of the day, but I have a feeling that there's a change in wind direction, I'm gonna be hung out to dry for these, as my father was.

• 42:25Speaker 04

  Yes, and I, I wondered, thinking about that, if there's something...

• 42:31Speaker 04

  Something almost that he creates, like he has known throughout his entire life that his father died for doing what he was ordered to do. His master's commandment. And then, in the end, Dudley dies for doing what he's been told to do, or what the council have said is right. It's almost like, you know, the thing you most fear is the thing you make happen.

• 42:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, precisely, yeah. Because in a way, yeah, he tried to get to a position where he was his own master. But to do that, he ended up, almost trying, he played the Game of Thrones, I mean, he tried to topple kings and...

• 43:10Speaker 04

  And crucially, among the people who take him down in the end are the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Arundel, like, all the friends that have turned to enemies along the way, the people that he has betrayed, that he has annoyed, the allies he failed to make, those are the ones who take him down.

• 43:29Speaker 00

  So does Mary even give him a chance to redeem himself, or do you think the writing's on the wall?

• 43:35Speaker 04

  I mean, he's given a chance to change his faith and convert Catholicism on the scaffold.

• 43:40Speaker 00

  Okay, that's... So he goes to the scaffold, he gets head chopped off. What about his son and his daughter-in-law, Lady Jane Grey and her husband?

• 43:50Speaker 04

  So they are both imprisoned in the Tower and might, in the end, have been okay. But poor Guildford and Jane. The following year, in February 1554, there's a rebellion, known as Wyatt's Rebellion, against Mary. It's against her marriage to Philip of Spain. And Jane's silly father gets involved. And because of that, Guildford Dudley and Jane are executed.

• 44:18Speaker 00

  Okay, well, that's the end of the House of Dudley, although, is it?

• 44:22Speaker 04

  Well, you'd have thought, you'd have thought. I mean, certainly...

• 44:26Speaker 00

  They're the comeback kings.

• 44:27Speaker 04

  They are the comeback kings, the Dudleys, because, I mean, who is the closest companion to Elizabeth I? None other than one of John's sons, Robert Dudley.

• 44:36Speaker 00

  Three Dudleys have been killed by three Tudor monarchs, and another Dudley ends up being best friends with the fourth.

• 44:44Speaker 04

  What's extraordinary about them is that though they're, you know, you've got John Dudley rising even though his father was a traitor, Robert Dudley rises even though his father was a traitor. It's this, you know, the rise and fall of the Dudleys.

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's intense.

• 45:01Speaker 04

  It says a lot about the Tudor court.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  And while we're on the subject, I'm sorry to put you on the spot here, did Dudley, was he and Elizabeth in love? And was it, did they ever have sexual relations?

• 45:12Speaker 04

  I think they were in love. I think they didn't have sex. I mean, it depends on one's definition of sex, but they certainly didn't have the sort of sex that produces babies, because there wasn't any reliable contraception at the time. So the chances of disaster were too great. But in terms of the intimacy, the emotional intimacy between them, that seems to have been very much the case. And we do have people like the Spanish ambassador saying, he visits her in her chambers day and night, you know. So there's this sense that they are very close, and that is known by everybody.

• 45:47Speaker 00

  The Dudleys, I mean, what a family, the ups and downs. So let's come back to our man, John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. Ultimately, was he a wannabe dictator? Was he taking power of the throne? Was he over mighty? Or was he just another Tudor courtier, taking advantage of opportunities that they came up, doing frankly what anyone would have done in his position?

• 46:09Speaker 04

  It's such a good question. I mean, he's certainly ambitious. The Dudleys are ambitious people. But whether he does that more than anyone else, whether he's more ruthless than anyone else in that circumstance, I don't know. I think he doesn't play it so well. He's not read that book about how to win friends and influence people. Perhaps he doesn't do it, you know, as expertly as someone else might have done. But I think that many people in his position who were hoping for power at the Tudor court would have done similar things. What do you think?

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Well, I think that's right. I think that's totally right. The thing that strikes me is that once you have a child on the throne, whether it's Henry VI, whether it's Edward V, whether it is Edward VI, everyone around gets sucked into this power vacuum. You have to almost kill or be killed. There's so much opportunity to exercise more power than you might otherwise do when there's a stable, mature adult on the throne. And Dudley could have just been an important courtier, but once you're thrown into a position where there's a kind of anarchic vacuum of power, then he's playing for the highest stakes. He's hurled straight into the middle of that maelstrom.

• 47:20Speaker 04

  That's right. I think that's exactly right. It's just too tempting, isn't it? And almost, I mean, I was taught, nothing in history is inevitable, but it feels quite compelling.

• 47:32Speaker 00

  Susie, you're very compelling. Thank you very much for coming on. Thank you so much for joining me and Susie. Make sure you hit all the buttons, the follows and subscribes and likes and everything. Leave comments, or do it all, send it to your friends. And you will get more podcasts delivered to you wherever you are at all times. See you next time on Downton's History.

• 48:12Speaker 02

  This message is brought to you by Apple Card.

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Ah, fall. That cosy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table's been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close.

• 48:29Speaker 02

  Time to kick end of year into high gear.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  When you use Apple Card with Apple Pay, you earn 2% daily cash back on all purchases, including food, decorations, gifts and more.

• 48:37Speaker 02

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• 48:44Speaker 01

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• 48:50Speaker 03

  Hello, I'm Chloé Hadjimatho. I'm a reporter at The Observer, where I get to dig on all kinds of investigations. Stories like the salt path that's taken me to Wales to uncover a literary scandal. And my latest, We Call Her Emma, which led me to Syria to try and find out why a British woman married a dictator. If you're like me and obsessed with narrative investigations, then I have a suggestion for you. At The Observer, we have a home for the best of our podcast series. It's called Tortoise Investigates. Over 20 of our chart-topping stories in one place. So if you want to listen, just search for Tortoise Investigates wherever you get your podcasts.

• 49:33Speaker 00

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